Fortunately, it turned out that there were good hotels, and Sir Lionel
took rooms at the one we liked the best--old-fashioned in an agreeable
way. Mrs. Senter went to bed, but the rest of us strolled out after
dinner; and Mrs. Norton began talking to Dick about his mother, which
threw Sir Lionel and me together.
We sat on the pier, where the moon turned bright pink as she dipped down
into a bank of clouds like a rose-garden growing out of the sea. And
even when it was dark, the sea kept its colour, the deep blue of
sapphires, where, at a distance, little white yachts and sailboats
looked like a company of crescent moons floating in an azure sky. I felt
in the sweetest mood, kind toward all the world, and particularly to Sir
Lionel. I couldn't bear to remember that I'd ever had bad thoughts, and
doubts, so I was half sub-consciously nicer to him than I ever was
before. Dick kept glaring at me, from his seat beside Mrs. Norton, and
drawing his eyebrows together when he thought Sir Lionel wasn't looking.
Going home, he got a chance for a few words, when Emily was speaking to
her brother about Mrs. Senter's headache. He said that there was
something he must say to me, alone, and he wanted me to come out into
the garden behind the hotel, to talk to him when the others had gone to
bed, but of course I refused.
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